AND HIS PRINCESS. 65 



whether it was that she missed the being who, however harsh and 

 cruel to others, was always after his fashion kind to her, whom she 

 had been so long accustomed to cajole, to fondle, to guide, to 

 moderate, the link was severed her gentle heart broke under the 

 shock, and, after hardly two months of a painful widowhood, she 

 sunk into the grave which had received her husband. 



Meanwhile the term of my acquaintance with this remarkable 

 person, if acquaintance it could be called between an imperial 

 prince and an unknown foreigner, was fast drawing to a close ; and 

 a single act of mine, as 1 have since had reason to believe, decided 

 Constantine to open to me at last the barriers of Warsaw. At an 

 audience to which I had been expressly summoned, he asked me, 

 without periphrasis, or the slightest attempt to lead the conversation 

 to the desired point, whether I would enter the Russian service ; 

 and as I almost feared that my immediate and unhesitating refusal 

 would have thrown him again into one of his intemperate fits, I was 

 agreeably enough surprised that, instead of the burst of passion I 

 had anticipated, he only repeated the question in his usual impatient 

 manner, concluding the query with an impatient " Yes or no?" I 

 repeated my decisive refusal, and with a dissatisfied grunt he turned 

 from me and left the saloon a signal of course for me to leave the 

 Belvidere. My memory does not exactly satisfy me whether this 

 was the last interview with which I was honoured ; indeed, one other 

 audience I must have had, though simply to take leave ; but of this 

 I am sure, that in no way was this subject ever renewed, or even 

 alluded to by the Grand Duke : he seemed to have dismissed it from 

 his mind altogether; and if the object of obtaining a recruit to his 

 service had ever been one of the causes of my detention, it appears 

 singular enough that neither in person nor by means of those who 

 through force and fraud were ever ready to do his bidding, should he 

 have made another effort to attain the point which my conjecture 

 has attributed to him. 



Be that as it may, a short time only had elapsed after the occur- 

 rence I have mentioned, when, on my inquiry as usual at the post- 

 office for letters from Vienna, the packet containing the long-expected 



passport was handed to me. Young S , the son of the Prince's 



favourite, had happened to accompany me on this errand ; and as we 

 discovered that the Viennese postmark differed materially in date 

 from that of the delivery, he, evidently not in the secret, questioned 

 the official closely on this remarkable discrepancy ; and only to his 

 reiterated questions, and ultimately a threat of complaint to the 

 Grand Duke, was it reluctantly admitted that the packet on its 

 arrival had been detained from me by the express command of his 

 Imperial Highness, and had been forwarded to the Belvidere, 

 where it had remained nearly three weeks ! I leave to those, who may 

 have had better opportunities than I of knowing Constantine's cha- 

 racter, the task of explaining this infamous proceeding. I leave to 

 his admirers, if such exist, the office of finding apologies for such an 

 unprecedented disregard of the private relations of life, for such a 

 flagrant breach of the social rights of individuals ; not that mine was 

 a singular instance, for I have assured reasons to believe that such 

 M.M. No.7. I 



